Chapter 5

"Apologize, Bennet," Eve said, not looking away from Kason.

I stood there, held up by her guards, my body screaming in pain, my mind reeling from the sheer insanity of the situation. Apologize to the boy toy she was flaunting in my face, after I had just tried to kill myself over her cruelty.

It was too much.

"No," I said.

Eve's head snapped toward me, her eyes flashing with fury. "What did you say?"

"I said no."

She stood up slowly, her face a mask of cold rage. "You will do as I say."

She walked over to a small cart in the corner of the room. On it was a collection of expensive liquor, no doubt a 'get well' gift for Kason. She picked up a bottle of whiskey.

"You know," she said, her voice dangerously calm, "I think you need a drink. To calm your nerves."

She poured a glass and held it out to me.

"I can't drink, Eve," I said, my voice shaking slightly. "You know what the doctor said about my stomach lining after that ulcer last year."

It was an ulcer brought on by the stress of our marriage, a fact she was well aware of.

"Oh, I know," she said, a cruel smile playing on her lips. "But Kason can drink. And since you hurt him, it's only fair that you drink in his place. A bottle for every tear he shed."

This was a new level of torture. Not just psychological, but physical. She wanted to hurt me, to punish me for my defiance.

I looked at the glass, then at her merciless face. I was trapped. There was no way out.

"Fine," I said, my voice a hollow whisper. I took the glass and drank it down in one go. The whiskey burned a fiery path down my throat and into my stomach, a searing, agonizing pain.

I choked, doubling over, but the guards held me upright.

Eve watched me, her expression unreadable. For a fleeting moment, I thought I saw a flicker of regret in her eyes, a hint of the woman she used to be. But it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

"He needs to be taught a lesson," she murmured, more to herself than to me.

I drank glass after glass, the pain escalating until I was on my knees, vomiting onto the pristine hospital floor. The world was spinning, my body convulsing.

Through the haze of pain and alcohol, I heard Kason make a dramatic gasping sound. He clutched his chest.

"Eve... I feel faint," he whimpered. "The shock of it all... I think... I need a doctor."

Eve immediately rushed to his side, all concern and worry. "Kason! Are you alright? Doctor! We need a doctor!"

She left me there, a collapsed heap on the floor, ignored and forgotten. Medical staff rushed in, but they all went to Kason's side, clucking over him, while I lay in my own filth, gasping for breath.

I thought of all the times I had begged Eve for a child. A real family. She had always refused. "A child would be a distraction," she'd said. "I need all of you, Bennet. All your love, all your attention."

The scene was a farce, but the pain was real. My pain. The pain of being replaced, not by a man, but by a pathetic performance.

The last of my strength gave out. My heart, my body, my spirit-it all just broke. The world went black, and I collapsed into unconsciousness.

I woke up on a gurney, being pushed down a brightly lit corridor. The smells, the sounds-it was a hospital, but something was wrong. I tried to sit up, but my hands and feet were strapped down.

"What's happening?" I mumbled, my head thick with a fog.

Eve was walking alongside the gurney, her face impassive. "Don't worry, Bennet. We're just taking you for a little procedure."

"What procedure?"

She leaned in close, her voice a soft, venomous whisper in my ear. "A vasectomy."

I stared at her, my blood running cold.

"You see," she explained, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, "since you're so determined to leave me, so obsessed with the idea of a life without me, I have to make sure you can never have that life with anyone else. You will never have a child with another woman. You belong to me. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be mine."

I remembered the girl I used to love, the one who would rescue stray cats and cry during sad movies. I couldn't reconcile that memory with the monster standing before me.

"Eve, please," I begged, the words tearing from my throat. "Don't do this."

But she just smiled, a cold, empty smile.

The guards pushed the gurney through a set of double doors. The sign above read 'Operating Room'.

As they slid me onto the cold metal table and a mask was placed over my face, the last thing I saw was Eve's face, watching me with a look of triumphant possession.

Tears streamed from my eyes as the anesthetic took hold. It wasn't just my body she was violating. It was my future. My hope. My very soul.

I was her property, and she would never let me go.